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Laurier mourns the loss of Caryl Ann Browning

Communications, Public Affairs & Marketing

Feb 12/07

Wilfrid Laurier University mourns the loss of Caryl Ann Browning who passed away suddenly at University Hospital in London, Ont., on February 7.

A supervisor of students in Laurier’s undergraduate and graduate music therapy programs, Browning was a graduate of each program — in 2003, as a member of Laurier’s first masters of music therapy graduating class, she received the Governor General’s gold medal at WLU for having the highest grade-point average of all the university’s graduate students that year.

Dr. Rosemary Fischer, who founded Laurier’s undergraduate music therapy program, remembers her friend affectionately, saying: “Caryl Ann was a totally dedicated, very serious student, and a very motivating, very caring teacher.”

Before coming to Laurier as a student, Browning was a teacher with the Brant County board of education for 17 years. At the time of her death, she was president of the Music Therapy Association of Ontario, and sat on the board of the Community Music Therapy Services of Ontario. She was also a practicing doula, her research in music-therapy assisted childbirth the subject of several published articles.

Browning and her husband had recently moved to Stratford from Brantford so that they could be closer to their grandchildren.

“Caryl Ann was deeply committed to the practice of music therapy, and highly dedicated to our programs,” says Dr. Charles Morrison, dean of the faculty of music. “Her passing is a tremendous loss, and we will miss her deeply.”